


Aiding a Lost Soul

by Terion



Series: Tales from the Emerald Dream [2]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-World of Warcraft, Set between Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, Suicide Attempt, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-04-21 22:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22119943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terion/pseuds/Terion
Summary: Caren Bloodwolf travels through the new outpost of Grom'gol down in the southern jungles and hears of a creature screaming at night. When she goes looking for such a creature, she finds only what was a man who lost his way.
Series: Tales from the Emerald Dream [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/598927
Kudos: 1





	Aiding a Lost Soul

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting complete on my computer for a while so here goes publishing it. I'm not currently still working on the series itself but I may return to it in the future.

_ There's something haunting the jungle to the north. Growling, screaming in the night. _

The words of the orcs from the new outpost of Grom’gol followed Caren as she headed north in her feline form. It not only made the heat of Stranglethorn more bearable to deal with but she also had a better nose in it, even if it wasn’t designed for tracking anything. She would, at the least, get an impression of something by scent if she did find it.

One of the trolls at Grom’gol had commented to her before she left, “It probably jus’ a jungle cat, druid. No reason ta go aftah such a thing. Dey too many of dem around anyways.”

Well...jungle cat or not, she was aiming to find out what exactly it was. If only for the peace of mind of Grom’gol.

It was what she did nowadays. Wander as she willed amongst the lands and fix problems. Largely in part to avoid going ‘home’ and getting lectured by Nomri about how she should leave her wandering ways behind and settle in Mulgore and teach her knowledge to other druids. Again.

As if she hadn’t heard that lecture enough now.

Shaking her head, Caren ducked her head carefully to avoid snagging her ever present horns on a low hanging vine and continued slipping through the underbrush. There didn’t seem to be anything going on in the region currently except normal morning activity with the sounds of the various jungle cats around her and raptors making their trills somewhere off in the distance. Perhaps she needed to just find a tree and wait until nightfall.

The orcs did note that most of the screams were in the night when they heard them.

Huffing out a breath, she looked around her until she spotted what appeared to be a suitable tree. Letting out a pleased chuffing noise at her luck to find one so close, Caren made her way towards it.

It took some doing to climb up the tree - her feline form was not as well built for it as the jungle cats and she was unfamiliar with the bark of these particular trees - but she did make it. The tree had a trio of thick, heavy limbs sprawling out from its trunk and there was a comfortable looking spot where two came close enough to almost touch. Settling down in that spot, she let out a great yawn before she laid her head down on her paws to wait.

The heat that permeated Stranglethorn eventually ended up Iulling her off to sleep.

And then the scream startled her awake.

Digging her claws into the trunk of the tree, Caren took a moment to get her bearings back together. It had only been a few hours apparently as the sun had only just set and dusk was just beginning to set in. In that time the first scream faded but it wasn't long at all before a second broke the air.

It was nothing like she had ever heard in her years, more an amalgam of_ multiple _ sounds rather than a single one. There was something of a jungle cat’s scream there...but also the squeal of the boar her tribe once hunted in the Barrens. The shrill cry of a hunting hawk was there too but that wasn't what struck her the most.

There was such_ anguish _ in the scream, a wealth of unspoken emotion. Which left her with the impression that this was no mere _ beast _.

Growling to herself, Caren carefully made her way down from the tree and set off through the jungle in search of the origin of the noise. It was a difficult endeavor and she ended up making several wrong turns before she ended up on the right track. Which led her down into a washed out depression, where sand and dirt had been taken away at some higher tide to reveal a depression with a small pool of fresh water and what appeared to have once been an underwater cave. She found a tree with a thick enough limb overhanging the area and scrambled up onto it, slowly creeping out until she could crouch to look down fully.

What she found was the hunched form of an undead, wearing the remnants of pants and not much else. Judging by the shoulders and back it had once been a human male, with a tangled nest of black hair. He sat by the pool beneath her, crouched forward on the balls of his feet with his torso hunched over his knees. Both bony half-flesh hands gripped his head as he rocked back and forth with a low, desperate whine that only just reached her ears.

As she watched, the undead let out a low moan and dug his bony fingers into his hair more desperately. Then he _ howled _, whipping his hands down towards something on the ground, and the terrible shrieking sound was not something a living throat was capable of.

Then Caren jerked upright as she realized what he had reached for on the ground was a rusted dagger. He straightened up then as he dropped to both knees and she caught a glimpse of exposed skull around his mouth and glowing yellow eyes that flickered like a dying candle. Then her eyes dropped to his now visible chest and saw multiple gaping wounds that certainly weren't there before he was brought back.

_ He's trying to die _, she realized dully.

Her heart suddenly ached for this undead man. His desperation was almost a physical sensation...so much so that she wondered if he remembered. Did he know what he had done? Did he recall all of the horrors she had heard about involving the undead Scourge that had ravaged the Eastern Kingdoms?

Caren's immediate response to someone harming themselves normally would be stopping them directly. But..._ this _? This had to be handled carefully.

Keeping her eye on him and cringing a little with every thrust of the dagger, she slowly made her way down from her perch. She didn't manage entirely to be quiet on her way down but he didn't seem to notice at all, too engrossed in his task. By the time she reached the ground, he had cut open a section of his chest and had one of his bony hands _ inside _ up to the wrist.

Heading towards his heart.

She didn’t know if such a thing would kill an undead but she wasn’t going to run the risk. Not wanting to risk him turning on her in her natural form, Caren drew in a deep breath and roared with all of the fury of the feline form she took.

The undead man jerked his head up in surprise, the glow in the back of his empty eye sockets abruptly bright as the sun. He knelt, frozen for a moment, before he quickly removed his hand and went scrambling into the cave. Thankfully, as well, the blade tumbled from his hand, lost in his panic.

Jogging forward to where he had been, Caren growled and yowled loudly in an attempt to make sure he _ stayed _. She felt terribly for scaring him but...if it kept him from doing whatever he’d been doing…it might just be worth it.

Shuddering slightly mentally, she snarled as she kicked the dagger away into the nearby pool. It sank with a heavy _ thunk _and she hoped that the pool was deep enough to keep him from easily retrieving it.

She stalked along the edge of the pool for a moment, yowling in an annoyed fashion to get across her disapproval. From within the cave she could see those golden eyes watching her and she wondered, for a moment, if he was truly coherent. Then they disappeared with a shuffling sound of earth moving and a low moan reached her ears.

Growling, Caren laid down near the pool with her head facing the cave. For a moment the noise from within tapered off into silence except for the night sounds of the jungle from above.

Then, from within the cave, came a low gravelly voice that asked, “_ Why?? _” in the human’s Common. There was such pain in it, such anguish, that she almost regretted her actions. Almost.

Above all else she was, she was a healer.

And Caren would not let someone, not even an undead, suffer needlessly.

She flicked her ears back as sound faded again, keeping her eyes on the cave for any movement. His words did at least confirm one thing.

She was not dealing with an undead gone entirely mad.

He knew.

He _ remembered. _

* * *

They fell into a pattern of events for several days after that night.

He would creep out, moving warily like a deer, and shift carefully around her. Obviously trying to skirt around her towards the pool to retrieve the dagger. And she would snarl up onto her feet, dirt and sand flying up from underneath her paws, and roar at him.

The undead would scamper back into the cave like a startled mouse and howl his single word question at her before going silent.

A few hours later they repeated those actions.

During the days they repeated this pattern, Caren did take notice of one very interesting thing. Every time he crept out...the wounds he had inflicted on his bare chest were just a little bit less there. After five days, everything except the deep gashes he'd carved around his heart were pretty much gone. It was certainly nothing she had ever seen in the few undead she’d met so far...yet she had yet to meet any so injured. All that remained now were old scars from when he was living, obvious knife wounds and the like that littered his torso and the wasted flesh of his arms. They were barely visible since they were just a shade or two off from his grayish blue-purple skin pallor but she had good eyes.

So he had been a fighter of some kind. Probably not a warrior, he didn't have the build for it. More than likely a sneaky sort, like the orcs and trolls had.

And then, one morning, she awoke to him sitting on his heels in front of her. He didn't seem to register right away that she was awake and she fought every immediate instinct to jerk away from him. Instead she opened one eye just enough to watch him.

He sat there, observing her in silence, and she had a hard time reading his face. Not only because she was unfamiliar with humans but the obvious rot he had suffered had removed many of the areas that_ were _ expressive. The skin around his empty eye sockets was dried out and thus was taut against the bone beneath, leaving his dark eyebrows the only indicator in that area. As she had noted earlier, there was no skin around his mouth, leaving an expanse of skull exposed from below his chin and up to his nose with the skin hanging ragged around it. It looked like at one point he had tried to neaten it up with stitches but hadn’t stayed in the habit.

“You…” he began after a moment, his gravelly voice a low whisper with heavy pauses that spoke of too long without speech. “You...aren’t...just...a cat...are...you?”

Caren opened her eyes then and there was a brief moment where they looked at each other, eye to eye, with the acknowledgement that they _ were _ both beings of higher thought. Then clear _ panic _ suffused his wasted face and he bolted, making his way back into the cave. She sat for a moment, flicking her tail thoughtfully as she considered this.

He was intelligent, obviously, but had been alone for some time given the evidence of his stilted speech. Had he been alone then since the undead had been free of the Lich King? That would mean at least two years alone, if he had been freed at the same time as the bulk of the Forsaken.

So was this merely animal fear? Had his isolation driven him back to such a state in order to survive? To deal with the things he had done?

Growling to herself, she rose and crept towards the cave. When she got to the entrance, she lowered herself to her belly and crawled slowly within, her eyes instantly adjusting to the dark. The cave wasn’t incredibly deep so the undead wasn’t far away from her, curled up on a ratty old blanket that looked like it had been stolen from an Alliance camp given the faded colors. He had his back pressed to the wall as he laid on his side with his arms wrapped around his knees.

When he saw her, he jerked in surprise and she knew a fight or flight reflex when she saw one.

Chuffing playfully, she rolled over onto her back to expose her belly - a universal symbol of _ I am not a danger to you _. He stared at her and she was certain it was rather shocking to see a large brown-black mountain lion with curved black horns lying on its back. Then she heard a sound - him letting out a breath, was that natural for undead or just old habit drilled into his body - and he slumped back against the wall.

“What...do you...want?”

Caren blinked at him and purred in response before rolling back upright. He stiffened but didn’t _ bolt _ and she took that as a sign to slowly move forward.

Crawling on her belly again, she moved until she could stretch her head out towards him and watched his face as she licked the back of one of his hands where they clutched at his legs. She was surprised by the fact that his skin tasted more like leather than the typical long dead flesh of an animal (which she had been forced to consume every once in awhile when times were scarce).

He just _ stared _ at her and then slowly, so slowly, one of his hands uncurled from his legs and he stretched it out towards her. She remained still, oh so still, and watched his mostly bone fingers quiver as he reached out. His touch on top of her head was tentative at first, as if waiting for her to shrug him off. Then, when she didn’t move, the touch became firmer and she felt the weight of his hand rest on her head.

“You...are not...scared?”

Caren shook her head slightly and he immediately growled, “Should...be. I’m...a...monster.”

_ A monster does not scream like that in the night _ , she thought immediately while drawing her lips up into a feline sneer. _ A monster would not be trying to tear out their own heart. _

_ A monster would not be here in seclusion, hiding from the world. _

_ They would be out causing fear. _

She could not say these things, however, not without the proper throat to speak it. And she still wasn’t at enough ease to shift back to her natural form to acquire one. Doing so right now would probably only spook him anyway.

Instead she growled as firmly as she could and made her best attempt at making it negative sounding. He made a vague gasping sound in response and it took her a moment to realize he was _ laughing _.

“You...disagree?”

Caren nodded sharply and the undead looked almost...amused. At least with what she could reach of his expression and body language.

“Why...do you...care?” he asked in a gasping breath. “I’m...no...one.”

She chuffed in exasperation because he was asking _ far _ too hard questions to be answering without a proper voice. But...she could try.

Very cautiously she ducked her head out from under his hand and scooted backwards a bit before she stood up. Jerking her head towards the entrance, she made her best attempt at a _ come _ sort of growl and padded out of the cave. The area near the edge of the pool was where she headed, since it was mostly sand around it, with enough space for what she wanted.

Caren didn’t wait to see if he followed, merely started working on slowly dragging her paw through the sand. She paid attention through sound though, flicking her ears as she heard footsteps behind her. As he reached her, she sat down and shook sand off of her paw before looking at him.

The undead slouched in a cautious fashion next to her, the glow of his eyes flickering as if it was constantly moving, and then he looked down at the words she had laid out in Common in the sand.

“Healer,” he read out loud. “Life. Protect.”

Shaking his head as if in denial as he took a step back, he asked, “_ Why? _ I’m...not...worth...anything. I... _ killed _. Blood...on my...hands. Not...worth...protection.”

Now...now she did shift back.

He staggered backwards, stumbling in the dirt and sand and falling onto his backside with a frightened cry. Caren held up her hands and dropped to one knee, kneeling in the sand, and trying very hard to make herself look less threatening. He had probably never encountered a tauren in his life, dead or alive.

“Everything has right to be protect,” she intoned softly in somewhat broken Common. Kaalo Stormfist had begun teaching her what he knew of the language when she’d met the orc but her ability to understand it was far more advanced that her ability to speak it. Spreading her hands, Caren added, “Life is life.”

That had the undead man scrambling onto his feet, his mouth gaping open in the best approximation of a snarl that he could manage with an exposed skull. He snarled, “This...isn’t..._ life! _ What...ever...you are...this...isn’t...life.”

Shaking her head, she gestured at him, saying, “You free.”

He startled and replied in a breathless sort of way, “What?”

“You free,” repeated Caren. “Of Lich King control. Of past, whatever was. It is behind, with human. Undead with Horde now.”

“_ I...am not...Forsaken _,” he spat, some of that affront that she’d seemingly knocked out of him coming back.

“You are you. Undead man. Lost man?”

There was a stunned sort of silence for a moment then he growled, “What...do you...know...of _ loss _?”

Caren shrugged before she answered that question. “Lose my father,” she replied, “my home when young.” She then tilted her head and pointed out, “You lose much. Why else scream? Why else hurt?”

His shoulders shuddered for a moment then he shouted, his words finally managing to lose the stilted effect between them in the wake of his rage.

“BECAUSE I WANT TO DIE!”

“No,” she intoned firmly, rising to her feet. He staggered back a step, his chest heaving and his wasted face suffused with what she read as shock, but managed to stay upright. Caren moved forward a step and leaned down over him, moving her arm slowly so as to not set off a similar panicked reaction as from earlier. “Know how kill undead. Take head. Remove, nothing to work body.”

Once her arm was in place, she pointed directly at the still open gashes on his chest and forcefully stated, “If wished to be dead, you be dead. Would have torn open wounds with bare hands. You want hurt. Want pain. Want _ suffer _. Not want death.”

She had realized this during the days of watching him heal, one evening as he had crept out to try to sneak past her again. That if he well and truly wished to die, he_ would _ be dead. She had also noticed that beyond the 'fresh' wounds and unkempt stitches around his mouth, he didn't seem to be experiencing any of the extreme effects of his state. Which meant he was taking care of his body and not letting whatever rot should be present do as it willed.

He was shaking his head in the negative as she talked...but his hands were shaking. She absently noticed that there was an old brand there, along the inside of his right arm. The emblem itself must be a human one because she didn’t recognize it at all.

“I...don’t,” he began fiercely before he stopped, his entire body shuddering. His shoulders drooped and then the rest of him dropped, falling onto his knees in the sand. As he brought a hand up to brush bone fingertips over the mostly repaired gashes in his chest, he breathed, “What...do you...want?”

Caren sighed and made a cautious step towards him, followed by another when he didn’t bolt. The undead did tense up as she knelt next to him but it was just a wary sort of tenseness of proximity of a stranger, not the wound up fight or flight reflex.

“To _ help _,” she replied earnestly. “You not want death.”

He sucked in a breath, the sound almost whistling through his teeth, and then he nodded as the glow of his eyes guttered. The undead man’s head dropped so his chin rested against his chest and he clenched his other hand in the sand.

“_ Yes _.”

His voice was low and wracked with desperation...but it was the most honest thing she felt he had said since she had found him.

Moving slowly, Caren touched his arm very gently to get his attention. When he lifted his head slightly, she said, “Let me help.”

Despite the fact that his face was a wreck, she could read the expression upon it in that moment. It was the one that she had witnessed many times when she had extended a hand to those in need. Of hope, even in the darkest seeming of hours.

He stared at her for a long moment like that before he breathed, “Saran. My...name...is...Saran.”

Smiling, she said, “Sah-ran,” sounding out the syllables fully as she nodded. “I Caren.”

“What...are...you?”

“_ Shu’halo _,” she replied in her own tongue before switching back. “Tauren. From across sea.”

Saran seemed stunned by that then asked, “The...cat?”

She laid a hand against her chest and replied, “Druid. Healer. Shapeshifter.” Then she tilted her head and asked, “You are..._ better _...here?”

“Better?” he repeated, his eyebrows furrowing in obvious confusion. It would take her some time to decipher how his other expressions manifested in his face, she realized then, since his eyebrows were the most mobile feature.

Caren struggled to recall the Common word for a moment. “Comfortable.”

“Oh.”

He was silent for a moment then shrugged, ducking his head. After a moment he settled fully into the sand, his legs folded underneath him in a way that would have been uncomfortable for anyone living.

“I...don’t,” he began in a gasp, “trust…”

“Others?” she queried.

Saran lifted his head then and there was a staggering amount of _ fear _ in his voice as he whispered in reply, “ _ Myself _.” He then continued, “I fear...losing...myself. Going...back. Killing. I remember...I...remember…”

His voice abruptly trailed off as he brought both hands up to his face and a broken wail came out of him. Caren felt a surge of pity for this man, that he had to recall such things. That he was one of a rare few undead - as she knew it - who recalled what they had done under the whims of the Lich King control.

In response to this, she laid her hand on his shoulder and focused on her magic, seeking him out as she would anyone else to heal them. It was slower than she was used to, as if moving through thick mud, but she _ could _ feel him. And why not? The dead returned to the Earth Mother did they not? Did that not make the Earth Mother nature itself?

And nature was the realm of the druids.

She flicked her fingers, silently sending a small spell of healing into him to aid in repairing the rest of his body. The rest of her energy she focused on the sense of the _ peace _ of the earth, of the soothing impression she largely got from her connection with nature, and pushed that feeling towards him.

He whipped his head up in response, the glow of his eyes bright with what she could only assume was shock as his mouth gaped open. “What…” he gasped. “What...are...you?”

“Peace, Saran,” Caren soothed. “Safe. You safe. We stay. I protect.”

The undead stared at her for a long moment before he asked in a very small, lost sounding voice, “_ Why? _”

“Wish to,” she answered with a gentle smile.

“I...I did...terrible…things…”

Shaking her head, Caren asked, “Would again? Kill? For nothing? Or be different?”

His mouth gaped open again and then he seemed to swallow before replying, “Different. But...I…_ how? _ How...do I….live...with...this?”

Smiling, she lifted her hand from his shoulder and cast her magic wide, reaching for the plant life around them. Despite it not being quite their season, the vines above them abruptly burst with flowers of a variety of colors. The foliage around them thickened, growing at an accelerated pace, and even the overhanging limb she had crouched on when she’d found him had activity as mushrooms abruptly sprouted upon it.

“Live. Find way to accept," she replied. Caren then continued, "Life persists. Things die, more return. Cycle.”

Resting her hand on his shoulder again, she said, “You are in cycle.” Holding her hand out in front of them with her palm up. "You lived,” she stated, then flipped her hand over. "You died.”

Caren rotated her hand again and finished, "You live again. _ You _ exist, not merely body as before. It is second chance. Gift.”

"_ Gift _ ,” he spat mockingly, within his tone a wealth of sarcasm. Then he - Saran - looked up at her in what seemed a grumpy fashion. "You're...going to...have...to do...well to...explain _ ...that...one _...to me...druid.”

“You let me try?” she asked, tilting her head down at him.

He seemed to realize what he had said - that he had made a statement basically _ accepting _ her help - and the light of his eyes fluttered in what seemed like a blink. Saran then let out a rusty chuckle and nodded, letting his head hang low.

“Yes,” he replied softly. “I...I think...I...am.”


End file.
